The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-Rumi
Translator: Barks

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond

Very Grateful indeed

((((S1ow))))

A woman appears at the door and wants in
silence comes from the man inside
as the cold naked cherry of his guitar slides against the sweaty flesh of his belly
his fingers begin plucking the blues as if coaxing life from a dead resonant cavern
his voice halfheartedly humming melancholy bars like an aged but harmonious dragonfly

A chirrup springs from the screen door as the sensuous woman slithers into the abode
her flimsy attire frail and scant in the midsummer’s heat
she saunters up behind the musician caressing his neck with her long slender fingers
slowly sinking her teeth into his golden sun-baked skin

He begins howling his blues like a famished artic wolf in the night
droplets of sweat cascade from his cheeks like water droplets from a mountain spring
the salty fluid stings the tip of the temptress's tongue as she taunts him from behind

Her lustful fingers plow through his thick rich hair
her hot breath floods the cavity of his ear
he feels the resonance of his guitar against his chest
as he takes another deep breath for his final howl of blues

The music fades away
the guitar clangs as it touches the floor
his slow hand rests the neck of the instrument against the rail of the bar
as his stool spins around to face the woman

Her scant attire brushes aside easily as his slow hands caresses her waist
slipping upwards toward her armpits as he stands to tower over her
his slow hands continue upward pulling her wrists high above her head
looking up into his eyes she sees the depth of his soul
his face descend upon hers
lips melding like icy fire in an orgasmic osculation of emotion
life is what we make it
but it’s always best to make it with ~ Slow Hands.

~ Slumi ~
Translator – Dust Bunnies from the Nile

GOOD READING and GREAT writes in all these pages....

ooh goodie ... I was looking for this thread the other day ...

Thank you!

oh my!

That was a nasty piece of hyperbolic rumi-twaddle!
But i am delighted to be ridiculed along with such purrsian company!



(i can almost feel nipples like pinpricks bursting through the tenuous cheesecloth of her discount secondhand wardrobe as she slips her playful toes under my lap - and though the mind slows to match the parkinsonian tremor of his hands, for obviously there is no blood, the blues growl on like cement in the mixing truck disgorging in error on a busy downtown street)

Struck tent

I am the tent you set up,
then strike, quill pen you sharpen,
then bear down on and split,
flagstaff with the emblem upside down,
particle in window light, a galaxy.

I am all skin, yet soul as well.
Without you, I am fake.
With, as real as the cool
spring ground warming.

You say, I keep my distance
to see what dance you will do
out in the air, little dust grain.

Why would the sun speak to one bit?
Friend, you destroy and restore.

Do what must be done
to this love that has no fear
or no sense of being safe.

RUMI.

In love, aside from sipping the wine of timelessness,
nothing else exists.
There is no reason for living except for giving one's life.
I said, "First I know you, then I die."
He said, "For the one who knows Me, there is no dying."

Rumi

What you have despised in yourself.


They are here with us now,
those who saddle a new unbroken colt
every morning and ride the seven levels of sky,

who lay down at night
with the sun and moon for pillows.

Each of these fish has a Jonah inside.
They sweeten the bitter sea.
They shape-shift the mountains,
but with their actions neither bless nor curse.

They are more obvious,
and yet more secret than that.

Mix grains from the ground they walk
with streamwater. put that salve
on your eyes and you will see


what you have despised in yourself
as a thorn opens to a rose.


Rumi.

I ask my heart. Why do you keep looking
for the delights of love?

I hear the answer back. Why will you not
join me in this companionship?

This is the conversation of being
a human being, the living doubleness.

Cool, and in motion like water,
placed and passionate like fire.

Subtle as wind, yet obvious
as a wineglass poured to the brim,
spilled over and drunk
all at once for a toast.

Like rain, you make any image
more vivid. Like a mirror,
you can be trusted to hold beauty.

There are mean people who see only
meanness reflected in you,
but they are wrong.

You are pure soul
and made of the ground.

You are eyeshadow,
and the kindness in eyesight.

A ruby from no telling which mine,
let yourself be set in a seal ring.

Lift the sword-discernment
that rules a thousand compassions.


The Living Doubleness - Rumi.

Whatever journeys your life, and will, is taking you on, thankyou Alex, for this part of you, that we have .

Alex

Bump!

Alex

Time's knife slides from the sheath
as a fish from where it swims.

Being closer and closer is the desire
of the body. Don't wish for union!

There's a closeness beyond that. Why
would God want a second God? Fall in

love in such a way that it frees you
from any connecting. Love is the soul's

light, the taste of morning, no me, no
we, no claim of being. These words

are the smoke the fire gives off as it
absolves its defects, as eyes in silence,

tears, face. Love cannot be said.

-Rumi
(trans Coleman Barks)

The Most Alive Moment

The most living moment comes
when those who love each other
meet each other's eyes and in
what flows between them then.

To see your face in a crowd of others,
or alone on a frightening street,
I weep for that.

Our tears improve the earth.
The time you scolded me, your gratitude,
your laughing, always your qualities
increase the soul.

Seeing you is a wine that
does not muddle or numb.

We sit inside the cypress shadow
where amazement and clear thought
twine their slow growth into us.

- Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks

Love With No Object

There is a way of loving not
attached to what is loved.

Observe how water is with the ground,
always moving toward the ocean,
though the ground tries to hold
the water's foot and not let it go.

This is how we are with wine
and beautiful food, wealth and power,
or just a dry piece of bread:
we want, and we get drunk with wanting,
then the headache and bitterness afterward.

Those prove that the attachment
took hold and held you back.
Now you proudly refuse help.

"My love is pure. I don't need anyone
to show me how to be free!"

This is not the case.

A love with no object is a true love.
All else, shadow without substance.
Have you seen someone fall in love
with his own shadow?

That's what we've done.
Leave the partial loves
and find one that's whole.

Where is someone that can do that?

They're so rare, those hearts that carry
the blessing and lavish it over everything.
Hold out your beggar's robe and accept
their generosity.

Anything not coming from that will
damage the cloth, like a sharp stone
tearing your sincerity.

Keep that intact, and use clarity,
call it reason or discernment,
you have within you a deciding force
that knows what to receive,
and what to turn from.

- Rumi

Refuge

I see the lamp, the face, the eye
an altar where the soul bows,
a gladness and refuge.

My loving says,
"Here. I can leave my personality here."
My reason agrees!
"How can I object when a rose makes
the bent back stand up like cypresses?"

Such surrender changes everything.

Body abandons bodiness.
Soul goes to the centre.
Rubies appear in the begging bowl.

But don't brag when this happens.
Be secluded and silent.
Stay in the delight, and be brought
the cup that will come.

No artfulness.
Practice quiet and this new joy.

- Rumi

The Road Home

An ant hurries along the threshing floor with it's wheat grain,
moving between huge stacks of wheat,
not knowing the abundance all around.
It thinks it's one grain is all there is to love.

So we choose a tiny seed to be devoted to.
This body, one path or one teacher.
Look wider and farther.

The essence of every human can see,
and what the essence-eye takes in,
the being BECOMES.

The ocean pours through a jar,
and you might say it
swims INSIDE the fish!

This mystery gives peace to your longing
and makes the road home, Home.

-Rumi.